


If I Could Stop Time

by snogboxandahalf



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Based on a Tumblr Post, Book 6: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Break Up, Hogwarts, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Character Death, NOT a happy ending lol, Sad Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-11
Updated: 2019-10-11
Packaged: 2020-12-09 10:24:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20993273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snogboxandahalf/pseuds/snogboxandahalf
Summary: Harry and Draco find each other as a means of escape from their destinies, but their relationship is doomed before it begins





	If I Could Stop Time

**Author's Note:**

> HEY LADIES I had an idea and...... did That. 
> 
> Small trigger warning: Harry reacting to Sirius' death with alcohol/self harm but it's like. one sentence. 
> 
> I'm rly sorry about it and I already want to write a sequel to this fic thats like.....after the war but lmk if yall like it!
> 
> (also I use some of the OG text during the sectumsempra scene bc i wanted to get it right)
> 
> based off of this tumblr post i made: https://fake-taylorswift.tumblr.com/post/188261237630/im-back-on-tumblr-after-a-two-year-hiatus-to-say

It begins during their fourth year. It’s something about Harry’s isolating fame and Draco’s relentless taunts that pull them together like magnets, and the Yule Ball finds them snogging vigorously behind a very bemused suit of armor. From then on, it’s good. From then on, when they’re together, there’s no talk of Draco’s blood-stained family or Harry’s grim future. Draco comes to think of Harry as a drug, and all too soon he’s addicted. 

For Harry, every desperate kiss is air to a drowning man. He’s been living on borrowed time ever since Voldemort first came looking for him in Godric’s Hollow, but Draco’s hands allow him to forget about the inevitable. When he’s with Draco, he can almost imagine that one day, in the future, he’ll be able to have a husband and a family. He can almost imagine that he isn’t marked for death.

They keep not talking about it, even when Draco holds Harry while he sobs after Cedric dies. Draco’s determined to ignore what the return of Voldemort means for his future, because right now he’s with Harry and that’s enough. So Draco presses soft kisses to Harry’s unruly hair while he rests in Draco’s arms and prays for time to slow, just enough, so that the future may never come. 

Early in fifth year, Draco and Harry stay behind from a Hogsmeade visit and spend the day roaming the empty castle. For a whole afternoon, they’re the only two people in the whole world. They explore the secret passageways and kiss inside abandoned classrooms and Draco finally gets to see the Gryffindor common room. It’s the kind of afternoon that feels as though it could never end, and as they lie in the hazy bliss of rumpled sheets on Harry’s four poster, Draco breaks the silence.

“Do you love me?” 

“How could I not?” Harry says, as if he knows it’s exactly what Draco needs to hear. 

That afternoon they lose themselves in each other, and when they finally leave the Gryffindor dormitories, Draco finds himself whispering his love back to Harry.

When Sirius dies, Harry gets blazing drunk for the first time and stumbles, broken, to the room of requirement. His hands are bloody from dragging his knuckles along the rough stone walls and he’s practically begging for a release from his anger and pain. When he opens the door to find Malfoy waiting for him, he falls to his knees and sobs, because he’s free. 

Draco picks him up and holds him, just holds him, until he can find the strength to lift his head. Harry’s eyes are bloodshot, his cheeks tearstained, and it feels as though a knife is piercing Draco’s heart. He bandages Harry’s hands while they talk, and by the time dawn breaks, Harry is a little bit better. 

Not long after Sirius’ death, Lucius Malfoy is sent to Azkaban. It’s a reminder that, outside their universe, the real world awaits. After the trial, Draco’s face is pale and gaunt when he begs for Harry to fuck him harder so that he can just forget. He cums with Harry’s hand wrapped around his throat and tears in his eyes, and he’s not sure what’s from the pain of reality and what’s from the pleasure of sex. Draco figures, in the end, it’s effectively all the same. Afterwards, in the suffocating darkness of the room of requirement, Harry tries to help.

“You’re not your father, Draco.”

“Arent I?” Draco shoots back, and Harry has no response. 

It’s a sign that both of them know what they’re doing is stupid and unsustainable and fucking abhorrent, but Draco can’t tear himself away from those hypnotic green eyes and that stupid smirk, so they continue to live in denial. 

Sixth year comes, and with it the task Voldemort entrusts to Draco. For a fleeting moment, he hears Harry’s voice in his head, and he considers just fucking running away. He could do it—defect over to the good side. He could join Harry and be something better than the brutal legacy of the Malfoys. But Voldemort’s harsh catlike eyes are staring him down, and out of the corner of his eye his mother is nodding ever so slightly. Draco bows his head and accepts the responsibility, because what choice does he have?

Harry accepts his role as the Chosen One and goes on his secret trips to Dumbledore’s office every few weeks, while Draco’s secret sits on his shoulders and wraps around his throat like a boa constrictor. Harry knows that something’s wrong, but they don’t talk about it, not even when they share stolen nights together and Draco wakes up sobbing from nightmares where Voldemort is stepping over the bloodied corpses of his parents. 

Draco’s not stupid—he knows this means the end of whatever him and Harry have, and maybe that’s why he draws it out. The taste of Harry’s lips is intoxicating, and it’s all too easy to lose himself in a heady mix of lust and love that Harry is all too eager to supply. They both seem to be running away from something, and while this might have begun from rivalry and desperation, it grew into something far more dangerous. It’s an escape, a ghost of a life neither of them could have. It’s torture, in a way. 

They get two years together where they’re sad and stressed and broken; Harry from how much he’s already lost and Draco from how much he has left to lose. Together, they find ways to pretend they’re more than their futures. But, in the end, there’s no way to forget entirely. 

It falls apart on a cold day in March, when they run into each other in the second-floor bathroom. Draco is sobbing against the sinks, and Harry, brow furrowed, makes his way over. 

“Malfoy? Are you okay?” He asks softly, placing a hand on his Draco’s arm. 

“Get off me, Potter! I’m fucking fine, I don’t need you.” Draco snaps, and pulls his arm away as he glares at Harry, his eyes fierce.

“Clearly you aren’t. What’s going on with you, Malfoy? Don’t think I haven’t noticed how you’ve been acting,” Harry presses.

“Oh really, Potter? And how is it I’ve been acting? Am I just not good enough for your presence anymore, is that it?” Draco spits out, looking Harry up and down.

“Come off it, Draco. You know that’s not what’s bothering me. You’ve been distant, and I’m worried about you,” Harry says earnestly, once again reaching out to grab Draco’s hand. 

This time, Draco doesn’t pull away, but instead looks up to meet Harry’s eyes. In that second, he knows he won’t be able to lie to his lover. 

“Harry, you won’t be able to forgive me,” Draco says softly, the malice gone from his voice. All that’s left is a scared man—scared of losing his family, his love, his life. 

“Will you kiss me then? Once more? Before this all ends?” It’s a plea that forces itself, unbidden, from Harry’s lips.

They both know that their time has run out. It’s not worth fighting for a relationship that had been doomed from the beginning, so Draco just leans forward and presses his lips to Harry’s in one last desperate attempt to hold off the future for just a few moments longer. 

When they pull away from the kiss, Harry’s eyes are rimmed with tears, but Draco doesn’t mention it. Instead, he confesses. He tells Harry that he’s been tasked with something unspeakable, and that he’s been working throughout the year to find the Death Eaters a way into the castle, and he watches Harry’s face transform from concern to disgust. When he’s done, Harry is looking at him with rage flaming in his eyes.

“How dare you!” Harry exclaimed; his voice filled with disgust. “How dare you endanger everyone in the castle, just because you weren’t brave enough to say no to Voldemort! You really do think only of yourself, Malfoy, don’t you?”

“Come on, Potter. It’s not like I had a choice. The Dark Lord’s going to kill my parents if I don’t do this. I have no options; I’m fucking falling apart here, it’s not like I wanted this!” Draco shoots back, angered that Harry can’t understand his side. 

“You did! You always have a choice. You could’ve come to me, I could’ve protected you, Draco! I could’ve-—”

“Could’ve what? Protected my parents? You think you can save everyone, Potter, but the world doesn’t work that way. You don’t have any family! I don’t expect you to understand,” even as he said it, Draco knew it was   
a low blow, but rage was clouding his judgement. 

Harry’s jaw clenches and he draws his wand, but Draco is faster. Draco’s hex misses Harry by inches, shattering the lamp on the wall beside him. 

“Don’t you DARE talk about my family!” Harry yells, raising his wand to attempt a leg-locker curse that backfires off the wall behind Draco’s ear and shatters the row of sinks opposite the pair. Water pours everywhere and Harry slips as Draco shoots another curse at Harry which fractures the floor next to his arm. 

“SECTUMSEMPRA!” bellows Harry from the floor, waving his wand wildly. 

Suddenly, blood spurts from Draco’s face and chest as though he had been slashed with an invisible sword. He staggers backward and collapses onto the waterlogged floor with a splash, his wand falling from his limp right hand. 

“Draco!” Harry’s voice is hoarse as he sloshes through the water to Draco’s bleeding body, prone on the wet tile. Draco’s panicked eyes meet Harry’s, and he opens his mouth to try to speak, but blood fills his mouth. 

Harry yells for help, and soon after he hears footsteps in the hallway outside. The last Harry sees of Draco is Snape leaning over him, tracing his wand over the wounds. 

When Harry returns to the common room much later, still covered in Draco’s blood, he avoids the questions and stares from Ron, Hermione, and Ginny in favor of his warm four-poster, which feels just a little bit colder than normal. That night, he dreams about Voldemort raising his wand against Draco, and when he wakes up the next morning, he has no more foolish notions of life beyond the prophecy.


End file.
